10 Year Old’s Musical Composition Receives Global Recognition

Ten year old Olive Wallace comes from a musical family. Her grandmother is a retired Californian music teacher. Olive’s aunt also teaches music. Olive herself is a musician and plays two instruments- the violin and the clarinet. The fifth grader sings in her school’s choir and honor choir at Avon Grove Intermediate School.

Her mother Michelle Wallace says her daughter sketched out her first musical composition in pencil. When Olive shared the composition she had written with her mom, Michelle shared it with the TikTok community. “So my 10-year-old daughter wrote this,” Michelle explained in a TikTok video. “Could somebody play this? I need to know — I need to know if it’s any good or if it makes any sense.”

Days later, the musical piece went viral with musicians and orchestras worldwide. Musicians from all over the world shared recordings of themselves playing variations of Wallace’s song on social media. She was able to hear her music played on the guitar, the piano and the harp, as well as performed by string orchestras comprised of music instructors and middle school students. Six million views later, the composition had been played and shared by hundreds of TikTok musicians, including well-known professionals, and was turned into a full string orchestral arrangement.

“I never in a million years would have expected this to happen,I’m blown away by how many people put their time into that, it was just really amazing and beautiful,” Olive said. “I’m happy it reached so many people and brought so many people joy, I think that’s what music does for people,” she added. Olive hopes her music inspires others to pursue their love for music.

AGIS orchestra teacher Emily Lucas described Wallace as “always creative and imaginative.” She said other students at AGIS think the media attention is awesome and some have even asked Wallace for her autograph. Lucas added that she doesn’t think anyone was necessarily surprised by the response, simply because of how creative Wallace is every day. “If this type of thing was going to happen to anybody in the school it would be Olive, and Olive’s mom would be the person to make it happen,” said Lucas.